Guy_wires Collection

[Wires_Guy_wires]

Before bud break collection (up), versus after leaf hardening (below).






This is a tiny cherry tree.


Chemical fertilizer burn. A chunk of fertilizer stuck to the trunk, this happened over the course of a few days.


New buds with some fat needles. 100% sure a hormonal issue, because this one was sprayed with hormones.

The same hormones cause very, very nice leaf size reduction. Here's an example on citrus.


This one was treated a few years ago. This specimen is around 8 years old, from seed.


This one was not treated. I'm guessing a few years old from a cutting.


Full soil pines, cedrus and pines. A lot of pines..


Whoever said that JBP are vigorous backbudders, wasn't lying. It's a mess. Those worms might be doing something too well.


I seem to have quite a lot of pines.

 

[John in Toledo]

View attachment 198906
Chemical fertilizer burn. A chunk of fertilizer stuck to the trunk, this happened over the course of a few days.

I fear I may have done the same to one of my plants. Is frequent watering/rinsing good first aid? Or have you used other techniques?

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

Flushing them with water is a good first aid. But it causes the next issue; roots are damaged, dessicated and very susceptible to rot.
If the damage isn't spreading, its better to keep the soil a little more moist. That way the salts can spread, even out and wash away later during normal waterings.

If the damage is spreading, it's better to flush them, place them in the shade and if possible on an elevated place so that the soil dries out quicker.

 

[John in Toledo]

Flushing them with water is a good first aid. But it causes the next issue; roots are damaged, dessicated and very susceptible to rot.
If the damage isn't spreading, its better to keep the soil a little more moist. That way the salts can spread, even out and wash away later during normal waterings.

If the damage is spreading, it's better to flush them, place them in the shade and if possible on an elevated place so that the soil dries out quicker.

Yeah, the overly wet root thing did come to mind. I moved the plant to the "direct morning sun and mottled shade in the afternoon" part of the yard in the hope that things will diffuse for rinsing. Great simple suggestion/solution to lift off ground for using a drying air flow. I'm a bit embarrassed that I hadn't already thought of that.

Bonsai lesson for John. Solid fertilizer amount? It depends. (Lol)

For this plant, at this moment, in this pot, at those relative concentrations, a teaspoon spread across the soil surface is too much.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

I use 89% pure fertilizer. Which means that 89% of those pellets are pure nutrient salts, the rest is filler.
A dash of those substitutes a few hands full of cow dung (my brand of dung comes with a max of 20% being available nutrients).

It's not just the dose, but also the concentration. Cow dung can be thrown around all year except winter. Inorganic fertilizer is too much of a risk for summer in my opinion. The hurt pine shows why ;-)

 

[0soyoung]

New buds with some fat needles. 100% sure a hormonal issue, because this one was sprayed with hormones.

The same hormones cause very, very nice leaf size reduction. Here's an example on citrus.

Have you tried applying this hormone as a root drench? I haven't yet, but it seems like the effect might be somewhat different.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

Usually I do, and I did so in some of my seedlings. One has a twin trunk now and the rest was a little more unresponsive. Unresponsive is maybe an overstatement..
It was 2 year old stock 6-bap that was kept at room temperature for a little too long. Would have been a shame just to throw it out. I didn't expect a response though, since it should have broken down more than a year ago.

 

[KiwiPlantGuy]

Usually I do, and I did so in some of my seedlings. One has a twin trunk now and the rest was a little more unresponsive. Unresponsive is maybe an overstatement..
It was 2 year old stock 6-bap that was kept at room temperature for a little too long. Would have been a shame just to throw it out. I didn't expect a response though, since it should have broken down more than a year ago.

Hi Wires-Guy,
I didn’t realise that Benzyl Amino Purine did good things as leaf reduction. I have had good success with GA3 for forcing cut-flower crops.
So I thought BAP was a cell multiplier not a retardant?
Can you explain this more please?

I have access to “Payback” - growth regulator used for dwarfing crops (stopping cell elongation). Sorry, I can get the chemical name if needed. Might be useful as a soil drench for Bonsai.

Interesting topic thank you lol,
Charles

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

BAP can be used in various concentrations, too much of the stuff causes callus formation and growth retardation. Practically a standstill for years, I've had that happen.
At the right concentration, it increases branching in most plants, removing apical dominance without having to do pruning or cutting. In tissue culture it's the most commonly used multiplication ingredient; to aid adventitious shoot formation and inhibit shoot elongation (for practical reasons like making micro cuttings, usually an auxin is added in the same concentration). But lately the use of 6-bap has shifted a lot, there are more effective hormones to reach that goal. Some of which I'm researching through backyard trials.
The citrus was treated so long ago, that I don't remember which concentration did the trick. I'd have to go through a pile of poor documentation to find that out and since these citrus weren't meant to be bonsai, I'm not feeling like looking it up. I have GA3 and kinetin, as well as other hormones in the cabinet, so I'm not even sure if it was the 6-bap alone or a combination.

Whatever it was, I'm going to do some literature searches to find if there's something useful for pines and some of my other plants.
I'm at the point where I can fairly sure say that I have found a undisclosed hormone that triggers a good response in the sense that they activate shoot formation. The issue is just that without IBA, it doesn't seem to have effect. So there's elongation playing a part as well.

As for GA3, I've had varying results with the stuff. Sometimes plants respond, most of the times they don't respond much at all. It seems that herbaceous plants and other non-woody plants are more susceptible to respond to it. I have used it to force flowering of some tropical plants that were out of sync, with good results. It allowed me to let them flower at the same time and produce seeds, while normally, their flowering times were 2 months apart.

 

[Ruben Bouwmeester]

Recognizable, i started bonsai almost the same way. Only i had no knowledge about fertilizer.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

Bonsai techniques are pretty new for me, but I have been messing around with plants for over 10 years now, at least 6 of which professionaly, during and after my biochemistry studies. On a daily basis I let +/- 600 plants pass through my tweezer and scalpel every day. Hormone responses though, can be unpredictable. What works on one plant, sometimes doesn't work on the other. The key is finding a universal concentration or hormone; something that works on all of them.

I remember I treated the citrus to produce more shoots, since this variety wasn't available in Europe back then and I wanted to share it, but it dwarfed instead. It's basically my first bonsai, but in a 4L pot.

I still need to come eat some ribs at your restaurant Ruben!

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

First some mugo pics


Backbudding very, very well. I might do my candle cutting halfway in june again. This seems to work wonders.


Some field pines


Why stop roots at the end of their pot? I mean, if they want to grow, they are allowed to do so. I'm not a prison guard. These pots stand on trays with inorganics. More room, more water, and still the confinement of a pot. Easy to prune as well.



The shohin cherry.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

Scots pine from local collection, and from italy.


J. chinensis.


Magnolias both licking the blue sky.


Woah, that's a a load of needles. JBP


This is the most depressed pine I have. It's been drooping since the start. I'd be sad as well if my needles were that long. Weymouth Pine.
A little larch and a little juniper.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

Update from the field: 12 junipers gone, 1/2 mugo gone, 20 cedrus gone, 25 JRP gone, 20 JBP gone.
2 survivors, barely.

All vegetables, gone. Water taps are closed off. Week 4 or 5 of the dry spell.
I'm hoping for rain next tuesday.

The Netherlands should be known for their drooling summers.. This is closer to France or Italy. The deciduous trees in our mixed forests are dropping leaves as if its fall.
Climate change. It's real.

Figs are doing great, as do the olives. And citrus.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

Frankenpine JRP. 12 branches in development after 1.5 years. Enough to select from later on. Yeah!


Budding on EWP. Took a darn while!

 

[SU2]

How could i mis this thread!
You are hooked teun
Haha
Nice

Seriously!!! Was in this sub-forum to ask a random Q and noticed it, @Wires_Guy_wires I applaud you putting this up man I'm very happy to have stumbled-onto this! Kinda wish there were a sub-forum for 'showcasing' so more people would post stuff, IME there's WAY too-much of the "it's not finished so I won't show it" mindset, I for one absolutely love seeing progress albums and seeing how people develop their trees, google-images has all anyone needs if they simply want to see beautiful bonsai! But seeing people's stuff, people you can kind of contextualize to a degree based on their postings, is just great! Thanks again man

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

Thanks for the nice comment @SU2 ! I honestly suck at taking critique, so I'm leaving out a lot of plants as well. Eventually they will show up here but I reckon that's going to take a while. At least until fall.
I think too, it's always nice to see things built from the ground up and don't suddenly just pop up all finished. There's a process at work and it is kind of weird that we're seeing so little about it. Thankfully there's the 6 year jbp contest.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

My first actual bonsai pot. Cherry got an upgrade. I forgot how massive the stump was. It has roots, otherwise I would have cut it off.


Imported scots (tiny ones) versus local collection (bigger ones).


For some reason, the scots pine seedling cuttings did make it.

Have a nice day!

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

Fall buds.




J. communis and J. chinensis seedlings. Which are which? I don't know.
Treatment? Yeah, I threw them on some dirt.
Germination percentage? Some out of all.


J. chinensis after 8 months.

More to come.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

These red pines were suffocating. So I threw them to some other place. They do remarkably well in these poor uprooted conditions. Un-pine-like actually.
Growth has restarted, buds are popping. Maybe I shouldn't want to understand..


Shaggy 6 euro's black pine. I used worms to remove the potting soil. That did work to some extent; it was easier to pick apart.


Pomegranate


Cherry is starting to lose the wire marks.


6 year scots pine competition material.


Jack pine converting to adult foliage.


great basin bristlecone pine



Jerperners Red pines



Who is in for some horror?
I'm doing a 20 euro experiment: got a big fat scopulorum juniper, the blue arrow type which isn't meant for bonsai at all.. A telephone pole. And my intentions are to fuck up the.. wait.. My intentions are to bend the trunk. But honestly, I am expecting this to become a huge fuckup. Being stubborn and selectively blind/deaf, nobody will change my mind.
But first, listen. I had a few bucks to spare, 20 to be exact, and I wanted to see if this would work in the long term. I've seen people use metal hooks to create bends and I figured that I wasn't going to get those hooks. I could have listened to bananaman and saved up for some actual good starter material, but I did not.
J. Scopulorum: 14 euro's.
Raffia: 3 euro's
Ice cream for my girlfriend, because I dragged her through 5 nurseries: 5 euro's.
Yeah, do the math.
20 minutes of belt sanding pieces of wood and a few cups of coffee later..
Wrap the wet raffia, is 2 layers enough? Why not make it 4?! Do it so it looks ugly.
Pull out the rebar!
Do it all wrong!
Slip the bark and kill the top half!
Yeah! Air layer material. Put some wood lice in there so it can't callus up.
Now torture the thing until it tells you to stop. Is there a safe word? No, well.. Yes: dead foliage.
Is there any dead foliage? No, not after 3 or 4 weeks.
Is there active growth? Yes, that too.
Then why is it torture and horror?
Well, take a look:

The worst of all is, that besides the ugly wiring and dying spruces in the background, the poorly done raffia, that this is working for some reason. It didn't stop the sap flow.